Chapter 53
The second Teague and Lily turned away, I rushed Jack.
He wrestled with me, digging his fingernails into my arms, kicking at my shins. I grabbed his face with my good hand, ready to let my ability open up wide. He anticipated my plans.
And opened up a world of pain instead.
Every ocean in the world roared in my ears as he pushed memories on me. Mom, when she heard about Dad, wrapped in grief, curled up on the floor. My face when she told me what happened. Dad, his fear the minute before Jack erased five years of his life.
Showing me Dad’s memories was Jack’s first mistake.
Those five years were so fresh I could see them perfectly. Taking back the emotion that went with them was like siphoning the foam off a cold beer. Pulling the love away brought memories, all of them. I held them inside me, and then I was riding a wave through Jack’s brain space.
Now I knew what to look for, and finding my mom’s memories was easy. They flowed like water, slipping away from Jack and into me, making me stronger. My dad, movie sets, shared kisses in her trailer, their wedding on a beach in Bali. My birth, me as a toddler learning to walk. Laughing, with peas smeared all over my face. From a preschooler to a teenager in fast forward, with my dad aging the same way. More images: cooking together, watching me swim. Then ones I didn’t understand … a white house on a hill … swamps … an older couple … a much younger Teague?
I slowed down the flow to try to examine that image. It gave Jack enough equilibrium to push back.
His defense involved showing me things I didn’t want to see. Emerson broken and burned. Michael and my dad confiding in each other, Dad clamping his hand on Michael’s shoulder. The word son.
The pain was so quick and sharp that I almost faltered. Then somehow, I knew it was a lie.
I could hear Lily from across the room, her voice low and insistent, as she gave Teague the information she wanted.
I dug my thumb into Jack’s cheekbone, and pushed back harder. I saw memories he’d taken from Ava, Emerson, Michael, even Lily. Some things I was glad to see. Others not as much. Deciding what to share with Jack’s victims was going to be a long and painful process.
Even so, I took it all.
Once I was certain I had everything I needed, I let him go. I had my parent’s memories, and now I could have my revenge.
I stared at him, helpless on the floor, for what felt like an eternity. I wondered if taking other people’s memories away from him would leave him with the same kind of empty blackness he caused. I could only hope.
I used my cast arm to slam his head into the floor.
“Have we met our end of the bargain?” I asked, cautiously approaching Lily and Teague.
Teague watched Lily begin the process of shutting down the Skroll. “Yes.”
Lily’s face was carefully composed.
“I’d just started to figure this out earlier,” she began, after looking to Teague for permission. When she got it, she continued. “I touched every inch of every map in the Skroll, every corner of the whole world. I’d started to believe that the Infinityglass wasn’t real, and then something hit me. I stopped looking at maps and started looking through all the information.”
“Lily discovered the one thing that has eluded seekers for a century.” Teague took it from Lily and slipped it under her arm. “The Infinityglass isn’t a thing.”
Now Lily held my gaze. “The Infinityglass is a person. I told Teague how sorry I was that I couldn’t help her anymore. Since I can only find things.”
“Thank you for the information, Lily. Should I need you again, I know where I can find you. And don’t worry. I’ll take care of this, for all of us.” Teague looked down on an unconscious Jack with a wicked smile.
Lily and I walked out of the clock tower together.
Chapter 54
Lily held my right hand as I approached my mom’s room. Dad was on my left side. His simmering hope was encouraging and distracting.
“What if it doesn’t work?” My greatest fear.
“It will,” Dad said. “You restored me.”“He’s right.” Lily squeezed my hand. “You gave memories back to both of us. It will work.”
The early morning sun shone through the octagonal window at the top of the stairs. I hadn’t slept all night. Dune, Nate, and Ava had regrouped, and were out searching for Michael and Emerson. No one was ready to give up hope.
They couldn’t be dead.
“Are you coming with me?” I asked Lily. Her grandmother had been caught in a freak snowstorm in North Carolina. Lily’s Abi always said that if she was supposed to drive in snow, she wouldn’t have been born on a tropical island. I hoped to escape the convo where Lily filled Abi in on the latest happenings.
“This is between you and your parents. I’m going to be right here, though, saying prayers and thinking good thoughts, with everything I have crossed.” She squeezed my hand again.
“Are you ready?” Dad asked.
I nodded. Lily leaned against the wall, waiting.
We went in. Mom had lost weight while she’d been in the coma. Her black hair was shot with silver now. I couldn’t wait to see her reaction to it when she woke up. If she woke up. She’d never been vain, even though she was beautiful, but I had the feeling the gray hair was going to be a shock, and not the only one.
What was she going to think about her tatted-up and pierced son?
Dad shut the door behind us. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Even if you revive her, you realize that much of her memory could be fragmented.”
“Some of her is better than none at all.”
“I agree wholeheartedly. Kaleb?”
“Yeah?”
“You and your mother are the lights of my life. If anything had happened to you yesterday—”
“It didn’t.”
“Just know that no matter what happens here I love you.” He put his hand on my shoulder.
“I love you, too, Dad.”
I pulled the chair he’d been sleeping in up to her bedside. It was the same one I’d sat in when I tried to take away her pain— too little, too late. This time, it was going to be different, because this time, I was going to restore her joy.
I took both of her hands in mine and kissed her forehead.
Closing my eyes, I focused my energy on gathering up all her most precious emotions and memories, bundling them up carefully.
And then I pushed.
I pushed with all the love and determination I had. I focused on giving them back chronologically, as close as I could get for the parts I hadn’t personally experienced, and one at a time. Clarity was the top priority, after bringing her back.
Her skin began to warm against mine, and her breathing grew labored. I finished with the memories I didn’t understand, one in particular, and held on, afraid to open my eyes.
The machine monitoring her heartbeat sped up, and an alarm went off on another machine.
“Dad?” I stood, stepped back, and looked at him instead of her, but I didn’t let go of her hands.
Anger. Fear. Despair. Pain.
The rush of emotions sucker-punched me. I might have gone down if they hadn’t been followed by love. Gratitude. Joy. Relief.
Her blue eyes, the mirror image of mine, opened. She was smiling.